Obviously, I love music, I also love pizza and my dog. I consider myself to be a video game nerd. One thing about me, that you may not have known is that I am a sucker for history and geography. When I began thinking about what culture I would be studying for this blog entry I immediately chose Greece. I have always thought highly of Greek culture, music, and mythology. However I have never truly studied the music. I can talk about the mythology for hours upon end, but this is a music class is it not? So let's get into it.
The Influence of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece shaped the way that we live our everyday lives today. The Greeks were a very sophisticated people, studying mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and astronomy, they made advances and gained a greater understanding of the world. The people of ancient Greece were also fond of art, architecture, literature, and theatre. The stories of Homer's epic poem, The Iliad and Odyssey, are still taught in public schools today. Now one thing I have not mentioned is Greek music. Well because of the abundance of knowledge and art that is seen throughout history the music has been a bit overlooked in your basic history classes, which is a shame because it is quite lovely, which is not surprising, considering where it comes from.
Music of Ancient Greece
Based on the geographic location, the Greeks were heavily influenced from both eastern and western cultures, giving them a large diversity of art and knowledge. The Greeks saw music as a connection between art, poetry and lyrics, as well as dance. Music was also seen as a gift from the gods, therefore certain Greek instruments were named in homage to those gods. For example the panpipes were named after the god of the wild, Pan. The lyre was named after Hermes, the messenger of Mt. Olympus. And the flute was named after Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
Because of their fascination in science and the mind, music was believed to have strong connections to the body both physically and mentally and by no surprise their beliefs were accurate.
What you just listened to was the "Song of Seikilos", or "Seikilos Epitah, which is the oldest documented musical composition. Historians believe that the work was composed anywhere from 200 BC to 100 AD. When translated to English the lyrics roughly read, "As long as you live, shine. Let nothing grieve you beyond measure. For your life is short, and time will claim its toll." Those lyrics are still relevant to our cultures in todays time.
The Instrumentation of Greece
Throughout Ancient Greece there were several instruments that were used commonly by many different people, but the most acknowledgeable instrument is the lyre. A brief description of the lyre is, a small harp that sits in the player's lap. Tuned to a pentatonic scale, regardless of what string you plucked, harmony was always easy to achieve. This allowed for lyricists to shine because of the simplistic tuning. The greeks preferred words of music because of their strong ties to literature.
Is that not super cool? There is not much you can really do, only five strings are on this lyre, and it seems to be tuned to a minor scale.
Now lets give this next piece a listen, there is a lot more going on.
This lyre is much bigger than the one we saw on the previous video and is tuned differently, however each lyre is similar in build. Then objective of the lyre is to be able to play a harp in your hands. Now the drum is very simple, but it is pitched and gives off low drone. Im sure you can get a sense of some Indian influence from that. How about the vocals? They're very middle eastern aren't they? Like I said before, Greece sits in between the eastern and western styles of music, so there is lots of noticeable bleed from both sides.
Below is the last video on the lyre... its super cool. Enjoy!
Yeah, thats pretty insane right? I found the whole idea of an ancient world instrument being used to perform one of Bach's beautiful works, which in the grand scheme of things is not that old. Again this lyre is tuned differently as well as having a different structural build. The seven string lyre is the most common of all the lyres and is still an instrument that is looked upon today. Lastly can we all take a second to respect my dude here for hitting harmonics on open strings? That is WILD!
Out of all the instruments we learned about throughout Diverse Cultures, the one that stuck with me the most was the oud, or as the Greeks call it, the outi. The oud originated in ancient Persia and made its way to Greece and has become a staple of Greek music. I was particularly drawn to the oud because I love string instruments of any kind, also I am a guitar player... shocking right?
This is very much a Greek piece, however I am sure you can hear the Arabic inspiration.
Earlier in the blog, I discussed the oldest song, "Song of Siekolos". Well this super cool dude decided to not only perform the piece, but build ancient Greek instruments to fully experience what the people of the old world did.
Greek Music in Video Games
As some of you may know, I nerd out over a few things in my life and some of the most nerdy things are music and video games. Put those two together and I become the Ultimate Nerd.
As a child I always loved the Assassins Creed franchise, wonderful gameplay, a great story, and killer scores. A more recent release from Ubisoft was Assassins Creed Odyssey, which puts you in the shoes of a Greek mercenary who travels Greece near in 90ish AD. The reason I bring this up is for the score in the game. The composers behind the entirety of this score did a wonderful job!
Another game that uses lots of Greek culture, religion, and music, is the God Of War franchise. God Of War is an iconic series. You play as Kratos, a spartan turned god, who is out for vengeance. Spoiler, he kills all the gods on Mount Olympus by the end of the trilogy. The score is so so good, give it a listen.
Wrapping It Up
Well I love Greek music, culture, and mythology and I hope that you all learned something from reading this blog! Thank you for sticking with me and reading these blogs over the course of Jan Term. It was really fun and I hope you all have a nice spring semester!
Works Cited
“Music - Mysterious Greece - the Insider’s Travel Guide.” 2014. Mysterious Greece The Insider’s Travel Guide. Mysterious Greece - The Insider’s Travel Guide. October 27, 2014. https://www.mysteriousgreece.com/about-greece/music/.
“Classical Greek Culture (Article).” n.d. Khan Academy. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/classical-greece/a/greek-culture#:~:text=The%20Greeks%20made%20important%20contributions.
Wired. 2009. “The Seikilos Epitaph: The Oldest Song in the World,” October 29, 2009. https://www.wired.com/2009/10/the-seikilos-epitaph/.
Cartwright, Mark. 2013. “Ancient Greek Music.” World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Greek_Music/.
Hi Isaiah, it is very nice to getting me back the the memory of History I at Converse, when you gave this Seikilos music. Yes Greece music is kind of mysterious but also very rational, because it related to the math and logic as well as philosophy. thanks for sharing！
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